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When plotted on a logarithmic graph, 15 separate lists of paradigm shifts for key events in human history show an exponential trend. Lists prepared by, among others, Carl Sagan, Paul D. Boyer, Encyclopædia Britannica, American Museum of Natural History and University of Arizona, compiled by Ray Kurzweil.

The technological singularity is a hypothesized point in the future at which the rate of technological growth approaches infinity. Moore's Law is often cited to assist in the prediction of the date of the singularity. Theorists are increasingly of the opinion that the singularity will occur via the creation of artificial intelligence (AI) or brain-computer interfaces, of smarter-than-human entities who rapidly accelerate technological progress beyond the capability of human beings to participate meaningfully in said progress. Futurists have varying opinions regarding the timing and consequences of such an event and "The Singularity" has featured prominently in work by a variety of science fiction authors.

Vernor Vinge originally coined the term "singularity" in observing that, just as our model of physics breaks down when it tries to model the singularity at the center of a black hole, our model of the world breaks down when it tries to model a future that contains entities smarter than human.

Statistician I. J. Good first explored the idea of an "intelligence explosion", arguing that machines surpassing human intellect should be capable of recursively augmenting their own mental abilities until they vastly exceed those of their creators. Later, in the 1980s, Vinge popularized the concept in lectures, essays, and science fiction. More recently, some AI researchers have voiced concern over the singularity's potential dangers.

Some futurists, such as Ray Kurzweil, consider it part of a long-term pattern of accelerating change that generalizes Moore's Law to technologies predating the integrated circuit. Critics of this interpretation consider it an example of static analysis.

Good (1965) speculated on the consequences of machines smarter than humans:

Mathematician and author Vernor Vinge greatly popularized Good’s notion of an intelligence explosion in the 1980s, calling the creation of the first ultraintelligent machine the Singularity. Vinge first addressed the topic in print in the January 1983 issue of Omni magazine. Vinge (1993) contains the oft-quoted statement, "Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly thereafter, the human era will be ended." Vinge clarifies his estimate of the time scales involved, adding, "I'll be surprised if this event occurs before 2005 or after 2030."

Vinge continues by predicting that superhuman intelligences, however created, will be even more able to enhance their own minds faster than the humans that created them. “When greater-than-human intelligence drives progress,” Vinge writes, “that progress will be much more rapid.” This feedback loop of self-improving intelligence, he predicts, will cause large amounts of technological progress within a short period of time.

Most proposed methods for creating smarter-than-human or transhuman minds fall into one of two categories: intelligence amplification of human brains and artificial intelligence. The means speculated to produce intelligence augmentation are numerous, and include bio- and genetic engineering, nootropic drugs, AI assistants, direct brain-computer interfaces, and mind transfer. Despite the numerous speculated means for amplifying human intelligence, non-human artificial intelligence (specifically seed AI) is the most popular option for organizations trying to directly initiate the Singularity, a choice addressed by Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (2002). Hanson (1998) is also skeptical of human intelligence augmentation, writing that once one has exhausted the “low-hanging fruit” of easy methods for increasing human intelligence, further improvements will become increasingly difficult to find.

Some speculate superhuman intelligences may have goals inconsistent with human survival and prosperity. AI researcher Hugo de Garis suggests AIs may simply eliminate the human race, and humans would be powerless to stop them. Other oft-cited dangers include those commonly associated with molecular nanotechnology and genetic engineering. These threats are major issues for both singularity advocates and critics, and were the subject of Bill Joy's Wired magazine article "Why the future doesn't need us" (Joy 2000).

Bostrom (2002) discusses human extinction scenarios, and lists superintelligence as a possible cause:

Moravec (1992) argues that although super-intelligence in the form of machines may make humans in some sense obsolete as the top intelligence, there will still be room in the ecology for humans

Some AI researchers have made efforts to diminish what they view as potential dangers associated with the singularity. The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence is a nonprofit research institute for the study and advancement of Friendly Artificial Intelligence, a method proposed by SIAI research fellow Eliezer Yudkowsky for ensuring the stability and safety of AIs that experience Good's "intelligence explosion". AI researcher Bill Hibbard also addresses issues of AI safety and morality in his book Super-Intelligent Machines.

Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics are one of the earliest examples of proposed safety measures for AI. The laws are intended to prevent artificially intelligent robots from harming humans. In Asimov’s stories, any perceived problems with the laws tend to arise as a result of a misunderstanding on the part of some human operator; the robots themselves shut down in the case of a real conflict. On the other hand, in works such as the film I, Robot, which was based very loosely on Asimov's stories, a possibility is explored in which AI take complete control over humanity for the purpose of protecting humanity from itself. In 2004, the Singularity Institute launched an Internet campaign called 3 Laws Unsafe to raise awareness of AI safety issues and the inadequacy of Asimov’s laws in particular (Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence 2004).

Many Singularitarians consider nanotechnology to be one of the greatest dangers facing humanity. For this reason, they often believe seed AI (an AI capable of making itself smarter) should precede nanotechnology. Others, such as the Foresight Institute, advocate efforts to create molecular nanotechnology, claiming nanotechnology can be made safe for pre-Singularity use or can expedite the arrival of a beneficial Singularity.

Kurzweil writes that, due to paradigm shifts, a trend of exponential growth extends from integrated circuits to earlier transistors, vacuum tubes, relays and electromechanical computers.

Main article: Accelerating change

Some Singularity proponents argue its inevitability through extrapolation of past trends, especially those pertaining to shortening gaps between improvements to technology. In one of the first uses of the term "singularity" in the context of technological progress, Ulam (1958) tells of a conversation with John von Neumann about accelerating change:

Hawkins (1983) writes that "mindsteps", dramatic and irreversible changes to paradigms or world views, are accelerating in frequency as quantified in his mindstep equation. He cites the inventions of writing, mathematics, and the computer as examples of such changes.

Ray Kurzweil's analysis of history concludes that technological progress follows a pattern of exponential growth, following what he calls The Law of Accelerating Returns. He generalizes Moore's Law, which describes geometric growth in integrated semiconductor complexity, to include technologies from far before the integrated circuit.

Whenever technology approaches a barrier, Kurzweil writes, new technologies will cross it. He predicts paradigm shifts will become increasingly common, leading to “technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history” (Kurzweil 2001). Kurzweil believes the Singularity will occur before the end of the 21st century, setting the date at 2045 (Kurzweil 2005). His predictions differ from Vinge’s in that he predicts a gradual ascent to the Singularity, rather than Vinge’s rapidly self-improving superhuman intelligence.

This leads to the conclusion that an artificial intelligence that is capable of improving on its own design is also faced with a singularity. This idea explored by Dan Simmons in his novel Hyperion, where a collection of artificial intelligences debate whether or not to make themselves obsolete by creating a new generation of "ultimate" intelligence.

The Acceleration Studies Foundation, an educational non-profit foundation founded by John Smart, engages in outreach, education, research and advocacy concerning accelerating change (Acceleration Studies Foundation 2007). It produces the Accelerating Change conference at Stanford University, and maintains the educational site Acceleration Watch.

Some critics assert that no computer or machine will ever achieve human intelligence while others do not rule out the possibility.^[1] Theodore Modis and Jonathan Huebner argue that the rate of technological innovation has not only ceased to rise, but is actually now declining. Smart (2005) criticizes Huebner's analysis. Some evidence for this is that the rise in computer clock speeds is slowing, however the number of cores is increasing and the cost of chips continues to fall. (Sutter 2005)

Others propose that other "singularities" can be found through analysis of trends in world population, world GDP, and other indices. Andrey Korotayev and others argue that historical hyperbolic growth curves can be attributed to feedback loops that ceased to affect global trends in the 1970s, and thus hyperbolic growth should not be expected in the future.

In "The Progress of Computing", William Nordhaus argues that prior to 1940, computers followed the much slower growth of a traditional industrial economy, thus rejecting extrapolations of Moore's Law to 19th century computers. Schmidhuber (2006) suggests differences in memory of recent and distant events create an illusion of accelerating change, and that such phenomena may be responsible for past apocalyptic predictions.

Some anarcho-primitivism and eco-anarchism advocates, such as John Zerzan and Derrick Jensen, see the Singularity as an orgy of machine control, and a loss of free existence outside of civilization. Bell (2002, 2003) expresses a cautionary environmentalist perspective on the Singularity.

Other critics say that machines will never be able to recreate the motivation for intellectual growth. Machines do not have curiosity about the infinite extent of the universe and where existence came from. Machines also may not compete for intellectual power amongst themselves nor would they wish to leave an individual intellectual legacy. In these areas human intelligence is uniquely motivated and not likely to be artificially recreated.

While discussing the Singularity's growing recognition, Vinge (1993) writes that "it was the science-fiction writers who felt the first concrete impact." In addition to his own short story "Bookworm, Run!", whose protagonist is a chimpanzee with intelligence augmented by a government experiment, he cites Greg Bear's novel Blood Music as an example of the Singularity in fiction. In William Gibson's 1984 novel Neuromancer, AIs capable of improving their own programs are strictly regulated by special "Turing police" to ensure they never exceed human intelligence, and the plot centers on the efforts of one such AI to circumvent their control. The 1994 novel The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect features an AI that augments itself so quickly as to gain low-level control of all matter in the Universe in a matter of hours. A more malevolent AI achieves similar levels of omnipotence in Harlan Ellison's short story "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream".

The Singularity is sometimes addressed in fictional works to explain the event's absence. Neal Asher's Gridlinked series features a future where humans living in the Polity are governed by AIs and while some are resentful, most believe that they are far better governors than any human. In the fourth novel, Polity Agent, it is mentioned that the Singularity is far overdue yet most AIs have decided not to partake in it for reasons that only they know. A character in Ken MacLeod's 1998 novel The Cassini Division dismissively refers to the Singularity as "the Rapture for nerds".

Popular movies in which computers become intelligent and overpower the human race include Colossus: The Forbin Project, the Terminator series, I Robot and The Matrix. See also List of fictional computers.

Isaac Asimov expressed ideas similar to a post-Kurzweilian Singularity in his short story "The Last Question". Asimov's future envisions a reality where a combination of strong artificial intelligence and post-humans consume the cosmos, during a time Kurzweil describes as when "the universe wakes up", the last of his six stages of cosmic evolution as described in The Singularity is Near. Post-human entities throughout various time periods of the story inquire of the artificial intelligence within the story as to how entropy death will be avoided. The AI responds that it lacks sufficient information to come to a conclusion, until the end of the story when the AI does indeed arrive at a solution, and demonstrates it by re-creating the universe, in godlike speech and fashion, from scratch. Notably, it does so in order to fulfill its duty to answer the humans' question.

St. Edward's University chemist Eamonn Healy discusses accelerating change in the film Waking Life. He divides history into increasingly shorter periods, estimating "two billion years for life, six million years for the hominid, a hundred-thousand years for mankind as we know it". He proceeds to human cultural evolution, giving time scales of ten thousand years for agriculture, four hundred years for the scientific revolution, and one hundred fifty years for the industrial revolution. Information is emphasized as providing the basis for the new evolutionary paradigm, with artificial intelligence its culmination. He concludes we will eventually create “neohumans” which will usurp humanity’s present role in scientific and technological progress and allow the exponential trend of accelerating change to continue past the limits of human ability.

Accelerating progress features in some science fiction works, and is a central theme in Charles Stross's Accelerando. Other notable authors that address Singularity-related issues include Karl Schroeder, Greg Egan, David Brin, Iain M. Banks, Neal Stephenson, Tony Ballantyne, Bruce Sterling, Dan Simmons, Damien Broderick, Fredric Brown, Jacek Dukaj, Nagaru Tanigawa and Cory Doctorow. Another relevant work is Warren Ellis’ ongoing comic book series newuniversal.

Sustainable development Portal

• Clarke’s three laws
• Development criticism
• Doomsday argument
• Fermi Paradox
• Genetic engineering
• Hans Moravec
• Indefinite lifespan
• Lifeboat Foundation
• Logarithmic timeline, and Detailed logarithmic timeline
• Max More
• Molecular engineering
• Marvin Minsky
• Neo-luddism
• Omega point
• Outside Context Problem
• Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth
• Simulated reality
• Technological evolution
• Techno-utopianism
• Tipping point
• Transhumanism

• Singularities and Nightmares: Extremes of Optimism and Pessimism About the Human Future by David Brin
• “Meaning of Life FAQ” by Eliezer Yudkowsky
• A Critical Discussion of Vinge’s Singularity Concept
• Is a singularity just around the corner? by Robin Hanson
• Brief History of Intellectual Discussion of Accelerating Change by John Smart
• Encouraging a Positive Transcension
• One Half of a Manifesto by Jaron Lanier—a critique of “cybernetic totalism”
• One Half of an Argument—Kurzweil’s response to Lanier

• The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
• The SSEC Machine Intelligence Project
• The Artificial General Intelligence Research Institute

• KurzweilAI.net
• Acceleration Watch
• Accelerating Future
• The SL4 Wiki
• Accelerating Technology
• Singularity! A Tough Guide to the Rapture of the Nerds

• The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect—A 1994 novel by Roger Williams. It deals with the ramifications of a superpowerful computer that can alter reality after a technological singularity (warning: graphic content).

• After Life by Simon Funk uses a complex narrative structure to explore the relationships among uploaded minds in a technological singularity.

• [Message Contains No Recognizable Symbols] by Bill Hibbard is a story about a technological singularity subject to the constraint that natural human authors are unable to depict the actions and dialog of super-intelligent minds.

• Singularity by emhsoft

• An interview of Ray Kurzweil by Denis Failly about de the book The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, which deal with Singularity
• The Singularity Summit at Stanford
• Report on The Stanford Singularity Summit
• The Singularity FAQ
• Mar 2007 Congressional Report on the Singularity by ranking member Jim Saxton on the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee.
• 2007 quotes, Singularity Summit, San Francisco